


Pride Goes Before a Fall

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Bonding, Camp, Campfire, Gen, Healing, Knight & Squire, Mentorship, Pride, minor injury, stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 12:04:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13974744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: For Cleon pride comes before a fall when he stumbles into a rabbit hole.





	Pride Goes Before a Fall

Pride Goes Before a Fall

Cleon’s foot crashed into a rabbit hole, and an instant later, he heard as much as felt bones in his ankle crack upon impact. He expected pain to blind him but instead his ankle went numb as if it had been shoved in a bucket of frigid water. 

Shaking his head at his own folly—he had been so intent on impressing his new knightmaster, Sir Inness of Mindelan, with his ability to hunt rabbits for supper swifter than rabbits could reproduce this May that he had forgotten about their cursed holes even though Sir Inness had warned him about them—he mentally berated himself as the most idiotic squire to ever disgrace the realm. 

The only thing more pathetic than toppling into a rabbit hole was wallowing in one, so he began to clamber out of the hole, a process complicated by the fact that his numb ankle refused to support him. Still clinging to the pair of rabbits he had killed the way the dying sun hung onto the red-and-orange stained sky above the verdant forest, Cleon crawled out of the hole. 

Once he was out of the hole, he snatched a stick in his other hand and started the humiliating hobble back to the clearing where he and Sir Inness had set up their tent. As he wobbled along, he kept a hawk’s eye out for rabbit holes—he might have been stupid but not so dumb that he would repeat the same mistake twice in one awful evening—and wondered if his knightmaster would accuse him of being ten kinds of imbecile when he finally stumbled back to their camp. 

He hoped not though he probably deserved a strong scolding. Of course calling Cleon ten kinds of imbecile would require Sir Inness to speak more words at once than he had since asking Cleon to serve as his squire. Cleon didn’t know enough to fill an acorn about his new knightmaster yet but he had noticed that Sir Inness was quiet as a rock like his sister Kel. Cleon dared to hope that might mean that Sir Inness was kind like Kel. After all, kindness was whispered to run in families the way insanity did. 

His stomach knotted as he approached the tent and cackling fire Sir Inness was feeding kindling. 

“Cleon!” Sir Inness stared at Cleon, doubtlessly pale as if he had seen a ghost or just become one, as he appeared in the clearing. “Are you hurt?” 

“I’m fine, thank you, sir,” Cleon replied without needing a pause to think. He might have been thick as a swamp, but even he had absorbed Lord Wyldon’s lessons about knights having to be stronger than pain. Besides, it wasn’t as if his ankle hurt. It was just numb, and he couldn’t put any weight on it without collapsing. 

“I see you can’t walk.” Sir Inness rose to help Cleon over to a mossy log that he could sit upon by the fire. Keeping an arm around Cleon’s shoulders, Sir Inness settled next to him on the log and said softly, “Squire, I understand that Lord Wyldon hammered it into your skull that a warrior must fight through pain. Sometimes that’s true when you’re in the heat of battle, but when we aren’t fighting, we shouldn’t ignore pain. Instead we should get it treated so we can be stronger for the next fight. When I ask if you’re hurt, I need you to be honest with me, not stoic.” 

“Yes, sir.” That was the most sentences Sir Inness had linked together since the start of their relationship. Cleon worried that he had upset his knightmaster, proving he truly was an oaf. “My ankle doesn’t hurt. It just feels numb, and I can’t walk on it.” 

“It’s broken.” Sir Inness tenderly touched Cleon’s ankle, and the slight pressure made Cloen gasp in pain for the first time. “It’s also swelling. I have some herbs to make a tea that will help with the swelling but first we’ll need to get you bandaged, lad.” 

“Yes, sir.” At the moment, Cleon would have agreed to chopping off his own ankle to end the pain that had throbbed inside it when Sir Inness’s fingers had pressed lightly on it. “Thank you.” 

Sir Inness grabbed a roll of bandages from his saddle bag and began to wrap it around Cleon’s ankle, explaining, “I’ve got to bandage you loose enough to accommodate your swelling but tight enough to provide support for your ankle. This bandaging should let you ride until we come to an inn tomorrow where I know there will be a healer who can treat you.” 

Sir Inness’s words distracted Cleon from the pain of having his ankle bandaged but that only caused his pride to hurt more in compensation. His dignity felt as bruised as his ankle. 

“I’m sorry, sir. You shouldn’t have to be bandaging me.” Cleon could have kicked himself if he didn’t have a broken ankle. “You warned me about the rabbit holes but I raced back here with my catch without looking where my feet were carrying me. I was in such a rush to return to camp that I was careless.” 

“Why were you in such a rush?” Sir Inness’s question was mild as he cut the bandage but Cleon’s cheeks burned like the flames consuming the wood in front of him. 

“I wanted to impress you, sir.” Cleon ducked his head, certain that he had achieved the exact opposite. “I hoped to show you how quickly I could hunt. Instead I fell down a rabbit hole.” 

“Cleon.” Sir Inness squeezed Cleon’s shoulder. “I am impressed with you. Otherwise I’d never have asked you to be my squire.” 

“I fell down a rabbit hole, sir.” Cleon was convinced that his knightmaster must have missed this important detail because nobody could be anything less than ashamed of a squire who tripped in a rabbit hole. 

“So did I.” Sir Inness’s face slide into the first smile Cleon had ever seen on it as he poured herbs and water into a pot over the fire to make tea. “I was a squire like you when I fell down a rabbit hole, but, unlike you, I was months away from my knighthood. That was the problem. I was at a prickly age where I didn’t want to listen to a word my knightmaster said—you’d better not pass through such a stage—since I thought I knew everything. Predictably when my knightmaster reminded me to beware of rabbit holes, I ignored his instruction, and pride goes before a fall.” 

Cleon had to bite back the urge to laugh at the mental picture his knightmaster’s story had created. Sir Inness hadn’t laughed at Cleon’s plight so in fairness Cleon couldn’t have a chuckle at his expense. Apart from that, it was always dangerous to make a mockery out of a man who was as wicked a hand with a sword as Sir Inness. 

“You can laugh, Cleon.” Sir Inness chuckled gently, and Cleon started at the sound he had never heard from the quiet man. “Mithros knows, my knightmaster did after he healed me with his magic.” 

“You didn’t laugh at me, sir.” Cleon gave a crooked grin. “It wouldn’t be right if I laughed at you after that.” 

The pot boiled, and as Sir Inness poured the tea into a clay mug for Cleon, Cleon protested, “I’m your squire. I’m meant to serve you, not the other way around.” 

“You can serve me when your ankle isn’t broken.” Sir Inness pushed the mug into Cleon’s grasp. “Do you sincerely believe that the only reason I took you as a squire was to have you serve me all the time?” 

“Having someone serve you and scamper to obey your every order seems to be the only attraction to having a squire, sir.” Cleon hadn’t dared a jest with his knightmaster before. It bordered impertinent territory to do so, and Lord Wyldon had emphasized to him more than once that knightmaster weren’t amused by wisecracks, but it seemed safe to joke now that Sir Inness was revealing some sense of humor. 

“That is only part of the appeal at least for me.” Sir Inness began skinning a rabbit as Cleon finished gulping down his tea. “I enjoy teaching a rascal like you, and a squire makes long raods less lonely.” 

It was something of a surprise that Sir Inness would want company when he seemed so reserved. Before Cleon could fumble for a reply, his knightmaster, tilting his chin at the tent, went on, “Why don’t you take a nap until I’m done cooking? I’ll wake you when it’s time to eat.” 

“That’s a great suggestion. Thank you, sir.” With the aid of another stick, Cleon hobbled into the tent and sank onto his bed roll. “Oh, and thank you for not laughing at me falling into a rabbit hole.” 

“If you’d done it because you’d decided that you were too smart to listen to me, I might’ve laughed.” Sir Inness’s eyes twinkled with mischief like the stars beginning to sparkle in the twilit sky. 

“I’d never decide not to listen to you.” Cleon blinked in a pantomime of innocence. “You’re too wicked a hand with your sword, sir.” 

“Don’t make me come over there and pound you with a pillow.” Sir Inness’s threat was good-natured, and Cleon chuckled as he curled into his bed roll, drifting into a sleep that allowed him to forget any lingering shame he might have felt about his tumble into a rabbit hole.


End file.
